The First-Year Writing team includes (left to right) Emily Isaacs, Maria Giura, and Bonnie Dowd.

The Conference
on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) awarded Montclair State
University’s First-Year Writing Program a 2011-2012 Writing Program Certificate
of Excellence at an event on Friday, March 23, during its annual convention in
St. Louis, Missouri. The national professional association for university
writing professors, the 7,000-member CCCC is an arm of the National Council of
Teachers of English.

“The award is a major accomplishment
and much-deserved recognition for Montclair State’s outstanding writing
program. This is the most prestigious award a writing program can receive from
our professional organization. It is highly competitive and a great honor,”
says Nancy Sommers, former director of the Harvard
College Writing Program and a composition scholar and researcher at Harvard.

Associate
Professor of English and First-Year Writing Program Director Emily Isaacs,
Assistant Director Maria Guira, and Interim Director Jessica Restaino attended
the conference. “Montclair State won this highly competitive award for its
achievement in first-year writing and excellence in undergraduate writing and
assessment,” says Isaacs. “I’m so gratified to receive it and proud that the
CCCC has singled us out as a model program.”

The award
recognizes Montclair State for meeting student, faculty, and institutional
needs with its three-course First-Year Writing Program, providing professional
development for its nearly 70 full- and part-time faculty members, following
current best practices, providing ongoing assessments, serving a diverse
community, and having a program director like Isaacs who has recognized
expertise in writing.

Since 2004, the
CCCC has honored up to 20 writing programs a year. Montclair State’s is the
only first-year writing program in New Jersey—and just the second in the Middle
States Association Membership community—to win this prestigious national
award.

Isaacs, who is
currently on sabbatical, has been a driving force behind the award-winning
program for ten years. “Our program is strong,” she notes. “We take faculty
development very seriously, offering training to new instructors in August,
before they start teaching, as well as year-round support and online
resources.”

Freshmen are
required to take two semester-long first-year courses: College Writing I and
II. A small percentage of students also take Introduction to Writing prior to
these courses, to maximize their success.

Ongoing assessments
that focus on student learning help to measure the quality of the program.
Student evaluations consistently indicate a high level of student satisfaction,
and students regularly report that the rigorous courses deliver what they
promised. “We read a lot of essays to benchmark student improvement in a course
from week one to week fourteen,” explains Isaacs.

The program is
supported on campus by programs including Live Lit! readings by professional
writers, and the popular annual Exemplary Essays Awards that recognize the best
of the more than 200 essays submitted by students in each of the program’s
three courses. Additionally, Montclair State’s Center for Writing Excellence
offers students one-on-one tutorial and writing support.

“Montclair
State’s First-Year Writing Program really goes beyond the basics in every way,”
Isaacs sums up. “The CCCC award confirms the strength of the University’s
commitment to helping students become capable, excellent academic writers.” The
First-Year Writing Program is a collaborative effort, supported by two
assistant directors, Bonnie Dowd and Maria Giura, the faculty, staff,
Department of English Chair Dan Bronson, and most especially by the 70 teachers
who daily read student writing, offering suggestion, criticism, and praise
carefully crafted to best support improvement.